> I marvel at how Lenin (allegedly?) failed to realize that he wasn't implementing Marx
What? Failed to realize? Leninist vanguardism was, viewed optimistically, a deliberate modification of key elements of Marxism to address the fact that Lenin wanted to avoid the mess of actually having to have a mature capitalist society with the features Marx saw the transition from capitalism to communism through socialism requiring, what with Russia not having gotten there yet.
Viewed cynically, it was a modification that allowed using the language of Marxism -- an idea that had quite a bit of appeal internationally at the time -- to implement a centralized authoritarian dictatorship governed by a narrow elite, as well as providing the cover of a superficial theory that provided a veneer of an excuse for how "Marxism" could be applied a country with what was largely, in Marxist economic terms (not traditional political terms), a feudal rather than capitalist system.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that Lenin's divergences from Marx were unintentional.
I'd always heard that Lenin claimed to be implementing Marxism, but that actual Marxism wasn't what he was implementing; this is the first I've heard it said that he deliberately wasn't implementing Marxism.
What? Failed to realize? Leninist vanguardism was, viewed optimistically, a deliberate modification of key elements of Marxism to address the fact that Lenin wanted to avoid the mess of actually having to have a mature capitalist society with the features Marx saw the transition from capitalism to communism through socialism requiring, what with Russia not having gotten there yet.
Viewed cynically, it was a modification that allowed using the language of Marxism -- an idea that had quite a bit of appeal internationally at the time -- to implement a centralized authoritarian dictatorship governed by a narrow elite, as well as providing the cover of a superficial theory that provided a veneer of an excuse for how "Marxism" could be applied a country with what was largely, in Marxist economic terms (not traditional political terms), a feudal rather than capitalist system.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that Lenin's divergences from Marx were unintentional.